The second educational jazz program offered is called "Jazz for Kids: A History". This memorable and engaging program is a lot of fun for school children and gives them something to take with them. With little or no prior knowledge of jazz music, elementary through middle school-aged students are exposed to a live performance of the John Shapley Octet demonstrating the main sub-styles of jazz which are: Early Jazz/Dixieland, Swing, Bebop, Hard Bop, Cool Jazz/West Coast Bop, Free Jazz and Contemporary Jazz/Jazz Rock. This program is also National Standards-based and includes student/audience participation, discussions of the elements of the various styles of jazz, demonstrations of the roles of the different instruments for each style and performance of classic jazz compositions representing each sub-style. Follow-up lessons and activities are given to students and teachers for implementation in the classroom after the performance. They include topics directly relating to the all of the academic and visual & performing arts areas including: music, math, social studies, English/language arts, visual arts and science curricula. They are also aligned and correlated to the National Standards curricula and can be easily adapted to meet state and local school districts requirements for these subjects.

Educational Jazz Programs

The first of the two exiting jazz programs is the "Tribute to Duke Ellington" program which is a five week residency in which Shapley works with students and teachers in studying five of the most important jazz compositions of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. The project includes lessons correlated with the Nation Standards for Music Education. Lessons in the arts and other academic subjects are based around the American composer Duke Ellington. The culminating activity is a live jazz performance of the five Duke Ellington compositions by the John Shapley Octet.